A regional Queensland town hopes to attract skilled tradespeople to the area with a home building grant. 

Quilpie, famous for its opal mining and dinosaur bones, currently has a population of just 800 residents.

The town is offering a $12,500 grant to people if they buy land and build in the region to combat the area’s housing shortage crisis.

“We’ve even had a number of tradies reach out and say well, ‘how much work is in the region?'” Quilpie Council CEO Justin Hancock told Neil Breen.

“There’s so much work going on and we’ve got a lack of tradies here at the moment.

“If we can attract a few more out to help support that industry, that would be fantastic!”

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The shire made headlines last week when the cashback grant plan was first publicised last week.

Local mayor Stuart Mackenzie said they had received around 248 inquiries.

“We are pretty happy with the results!”

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Image: Getty